THIBODAUX — Nicholls State University will hold its first-ever inaugural celebration to install Dr. Bruce T. Murphy as the fifth university president.
Themed “Forward Together,” Nicholls Presidential Inauguration Week festivities are planned for Sunday, March 30, through Saturday, April 5, and will include musical performances, Colonels athletic events, fundraisers, service activities and special speakers to celebrate this historic moment for the campus community. The highlight of the week will be an Inauguration Ceremony at 3:30 p.m. Thursday, April 3 in Peltier Auditorium on the Nicholls campus. The public is invited to attend.
Although this is a first-time event for the Nicholls campus, inauguration ceremonies are a long-standing tradition throughout the country and are filled with pomp and circumstance, similar to commencement exercises. In addition to honoring the university’s past, present and future, the weeklong celebration will provide opportunities for students, faculty, staff, alumni and community members to meet Murphy and his wife, Jeanne.
Murphy was selected to lead Nicholls by the Board of Supervisors for the University of Louisiana System after a nationwide search. He assumed the presidency in January.
Before coming to Nicholls, Murphy was the vice president for academic affairs at Air University in Alabama for the past eight years. He previously served as founding dean of the School of Business at Point Park University in Pittsburgh; founding director of the graduate program in organizational leadership and chair of the Walker School of Business at Mercyhurst College in Pennsylvania; and professor of military science and director of the Army Officer Education Program at Vanderbilt University. Before that, he taught leadership as an assistant professor at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.
Murphy, a retired lieutenant colonel, spent 23 years in the U.S. Army, serving in Germany, Panama and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.
For more information on the Presidential Inauguration Week and for a schedule of events, visit www.nicholls.edu/inauguration.
